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St. Kate’s arson suspect: ‘You guys are lucky I don’t know how to build a bomb’

St. Kate’s arson suspect: ‘You guys are lucky I don’t know how to build a bomb’

A former St. Catherine University student charged with setting fires on the college’s St. Paul campus told police she did it because she’d “been reading about the US military destroying schools in Iraq or Afghanistan and she felt that she should do exactly the same thing,” according to a criminal complaint filed Friday.

“You guys are lucky that l don’t know how to build a bomb because l would have done that,” Tnuza Jamal Hassan, 19, of Minneapolis, allegedly told investigators after being arrested Wednesday afternoon in a campus dorm lounge.

Hassan was charged in Ramsey County District Court with a single count of first-degree arson. No injuries were reported in the fires, all of which occurred in the middle of the day Wednesday.

Neither Hassan nor her relatives could be reached for comment. She remained in custody Friday afternoon at the Ramsey County Jail.

Hassan allegedly told investigators she set six fires, though university and fire officials said there were eight.

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According to the complaint, the most serious fire started in Saint Mary Hall, a residential dormitory that also houses a daycare. Police said there were 33 children and eight adults in the building, when a chair was set ablaze — triggering the building’s sprinkler system, which prevented it from spreading.

Then, a second fire was set at the Butler Center fitness facility in a women’s bathroom.

Police reviewed surveillance footage and saw a woman — later identified as Hassan — entering both halls just before the sprinklers activated. She was carrying a plastic shopping bag, which police later recovered. It contained a box of matches.

Police located Hassan at 1:30 p.m, roughly two hours after they arrived.

Hassan told investigators she was a student at St. Catherine’s, but dropped out last fall because she and her family were planning a vacation to Ethiopia.

She told them, according to the complaint, that “her fire-starting was not as successful as she had wanted,” and “she wanted the school to burn to the ground and that her intent was to hurt people.

“Hassan said this was the same thing that happened in ‘Muslim land’ and nobody cares if they get hurt, so why not do this?” the complaint added.

Hassan told investigators she wrote a letter to her roommates about “bringing back the Caliphate,” an Islamic state. The letter scared Hassan’s roommates, who turned it over to campus security, the complaint stated.

A call to a university spokeswoman to confirm whether such a letter existed — and, if true, when university officials received it — was not immediately returned Friday.

St. Catherine’s Public Safety were first alerted to the string of incendiary incidents when a fire was reported in a basement bathroom in Derham Hall, an administrative building, according to a university statement. Reports of additional fires soon followed.

After a third fire was reported, “a pattern was noted, arson was suspected and university officials along with the St. Paul Police and Fire Departments were immediately alerted,” the statement said.

Police and fire fighters were called to the campus at 11:40 a.m.

Assistant Fire Chief Mike Gaede said all but one of the eight fires they discovered were in trash cans, mostly in women’s restrooms. The largest fire was in St. Mary Hall.

“That, by far, did the most damage to the building and the area,” Gaede said. University officials said in a statement that the extent of the damage is being determined, but indicated it was not major.

In addition to the fires at St. Mary Hall, Butler Center, and Derham Hall, university officials said there were five other fires across four more campus buildings, including Our Lady of Victory Chapel; Fontbonne and Mendell halls, which are classroom buildings; and Coeur de Catherine, the student center.

All of the blazes were quickly contained.

Hassan has no prior criminal record in Minnesota. The county attorney’s office is asking that her bail be set at $100,000; her first court date was set for Friday afternoon.

“While this was an unfortunate and stressful event, I am thankful we are all safe and for the wonderful and fast response of our Public Safety team along with the local police and fire departments,” said St. Kate’s President Becky Roloff. “Their thorough and quick actions helped ensure we were kept informed and the situation was resolved as quickly as possible.”

St. Kate’s is in session for students taking four-week January-term classes.

The university notified their community on Wednesday about the incident via email, their emergency alert system and social media, with messages going out every 15 minutes until police gave the all-clear, a university spokeswoman said.

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(c)2018 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.)

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Who cares where she was born. Send her to the countries that she wants to help and let her start new schools for them. But she must be watched as she may set fires to these schools also, with some dumb A excuse that will protect the fact she is a pyro.

This bimbo is worse than a pyro, she’s a hater ! You can’t fix haters. The military doesn’t destroy schools, they build them. She is probably part of bath house barry’s imports. She is muslim and they are all haters which is why he imported them in the first place. To help him destroy America for people of color and muslims. Did you notice that every person of color he put in his gov’t was dishonest like himself !!??

Wasn’t Minnesota originally settled by Scandinavians? I don’t remember these kinds of unlawful acts and social unrest back in the day when the civilized progeny of Vikings ran the roost. Trump was right again when he said we need more people from Norway. The wild eyed sword wielding Vikings of old were civilized by CHRISTIANITY in a few hundred years. It’s been over a thousand years and the throat cutting Islamists are still cutting off heads and invading where they are not wanted. This girl should understand when THEY invade and blowup people here, WE and our military are entitled to return the favor. Civilized peaceful people of real religions can be trusted with matches, conquering Islamic arsonists not so much so. You are what you are taught.

More than likely, YES She is getting tax payer funds to go there.. Just like all the illegal invaders are.. PLUS at the lower rate they get, compared to CITIZENS who just happen to be from one state away..

Tnuza Jamal Hassan stated, “You guys are lucky that l don’t know how to build a bomb because l would have done that,”. You Tnuza are lucky I am not running the Country, because I would have you hung right in front of your family, you scum!

Well she certainly has read he Koran if not her bomb making book. She and her kind are just another reason why ISLAM should be kept out of the United States because in reality, ISLAM is NOT a religion protected by the Constitution, but a political organization disguised as a religion. From its very beginning it wrapped its tentacles about the civilized institutions of government. Just ask the Iranian People or ask those Americans and Europeans whose communities were invaded and now have to knuckle under, submit (Which is the REAL translation for the word ISLAM) and live under a de facto Sharia law, right here inside the United States.

I agree with your categorization of Islam. I consider it to be nothing more than a primitive form of Nazism masquerading as a religion. Just like the Nazis condoned violence to “purify” the Aryan race and subjugate the “inferior” races of Eastern Europe, Islamists likewise advocate violence to ideologically “purify” the human race and subjugate or liquidate the “inferior” beings that are unwilling to convert to Islam. Only those individuals who, lacking critical thinking skills, have been effectively indoctrinated to accept the validity of Islam’s doctrine of ideological superiority or their ideologically naïve apologists on the left will claim that Islam is the “Religion of Peace” and has no connection whatsoever with the numerous Jihadist organizations that are currently spreading terror throughout the world.

[Tnuza Jamal Hassan stated, “You guys are lucky that l don’t know how to build a bomb because l would have done that,”. You Tnuza are lucky I am not running the Country, because I would have you hung right in front of your family, you scum!}

Same here backpacker. IMO a public execution for all these traitorous scumbag terrorists is the ONLY Fitting punishment we should give them.

Tnuza Jamal Hassan has got to be the dumbest college student in America. God help our higher education system if this is any example of their success. Tnuza deserves to die from lead poisoning, preferably self inflicted.

Why does the US give free college tuition plus financial aid to these foreigner snowflakes like obama and Hassan, and US born citizens have to pay out-of-state tuition and are often denied student loans and financial assistance if there parents make too much money (even if the parents refuse to pay for their children’s college expenses)?
We must make these foreign snowflakes pay for all property damages and refuse to give them any more financial assistance. Hot tar and feathers are a good deterrence too.

I didn’t see any thing in the article about her getting free tuition. Yes she is an ignorant America hating mudslime but let’s not make up stuff. They can and do make themselves look like ignorant savage haters without anyone having to embellish on their actions.

First this female needs to be tried for arson with the intent to harm others as well as the verbal threatening to harm the People of the US with a bomb. Serve time. Then lose the citizenship she was so generously given and deported to Ethiopia or wherever she came from.

Anyone want to hire an arsonist? She should never be hired by any company in the US. Maybe she will go somewhere where she can practice her art. I would never hire her, and anyone who does can expect trouble. She will burn your business to the ground, because businesses have been burned to the ground in those same countries.

Wow-the university knew and did not report this to the FBI? The director should be held criminally responsible for aiding and abetting. What if someone was killed? Since when is it not politically correct to report a terrorist act which is endangering fellow employees and students lives?? This school is whack!!